


Sorry Is Not Enough

by shewhoguards



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Hänsel und Gretel | Hansel and Gretel (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:53:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5995731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/pseuds/shewhoguards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s a lot of years before we’re counted as properly grown up,” Gretel said quietly. People didn’t count you as properly grown up until you could do things like reading and writing and sums. Things like being able to kill witches to defend yourself didn’t count. “And I know Father said he was sorry now. He was sorry the first time he took us into the woods. It didn’t stop him taking us a second time.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorry Is Not Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gelsey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gelsey/gifts).



"Hansel," said Gretel, some days after they had reached the safety and comfort of home. "I missed Father, didn't you?"

Hansel looked at her doubtfully. Gretel had the same thoughtful tone in her voice she had had when she first whispered her plan to push the witch into the oven. "Of course," he agreed carefully. "And-- he's nicer now there isn't anyone else."

“He is.” Gretel still didn’t sound certain. “But—Hansel, what if he ever gets married again?”

“He wouldn’t!” Hansel shook his head at that instinctively. “He—I mean, he’s learned his lesson now, hasn’t he? He even said that we’re all better off on our own without anyone else. And anyway, it’s not like he’d need to now, not with the jewels.”

Gretel bit her lip. She had been a loving, trusting little girl, but there was something about being abandoned to die in the woods that tended to knock all of the trust out of you. “There are the jewels,” she agreed slowly. “Except, you know, if anyone finds out about those jewels there’s going to be an awful lot of people who would be interested in marrying Father.”

Hansel stared at the floor, tracing a pattern in the dusty ground with his toe. “Gretel, what are you saying?”

“It’s a lot of years before we’re counted as properly grown up,” Gretel said quietly. People didn’t count you as properly grown up until you could do things like reading and writing and sums. Things like being able to kill witches to defend yourself didn’t count. “And I know Father said he was sorry now. He was sorry the first time he took us into the woods. It didn’t stop him taking us a second time.” She took a deep breath, not enjoying what she was saying any more than Hansel enjoyed hearing it. “Hansel, I think maybe you’d better hide a lot of those jewels.”

“He’d notice.” There was less surprise in Hansel’s voice than she expected. Clearly she hadn’t been the only one to consider this. “He counted them as soon as we got home.”

Counted them, and counted them again, in the time where he could have been embracing his children and declaring his remorse at his own actions. Instead he had been quick to blame it all on their dead stepmother. But… it hadn’t been their stepmother who had taken them into the woods, even if it had been on her orders.

“You’re going to say we need to go back into the woods, aren’t you?” Hansel added, and Gretel flinched at his resigned tone. This cost him more than her, she knew. Whilst she’d been left at home, subject to the slaps and sharp tongue of her stepmother, Hansel had trotted out after their father each day to learn the woodcutter’s trade.

“Maybe not us,” she forced herself to say. “Maybe just me. If you want to stay here, I won’t stop you.” All her life Hansel had been the one trying to protect her, but things had changed. Maybe it was time to protect herself.

It hadn’t been Hansel who had pushed the witch into her own oven after all. Gretel wasn’t quite such a helpless little girl any more, and the woods seemed less frightening than they used to be. Less frightening at least than a father who claimed to love them until they were in the way of a happy marriage? What would that kind of father do if he really started thinking about what he’d like to do with the jewels?

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” she added quietly. “I’ll take a few of the jewels with me.” Enough to survive on until she knew what was out there in the forest, not enough to make it tempting for their father to come chasing after her. “If you want to come with me, you can.”

Would he? She hoped he would. Not for the sake of the big brother who had looked after her, but for the child trapped in a cage she had kept provided with chicken bones to poke through the bars, for the beloved sibling she had lied for who was far more vulnerable than he would ever believe. She hoped desperately that he would come with her and be safe, but if not then she would leave alone.

Otherwise she feared that she might not live to hear her father say sorry a third time.

 

 

 


End file.
